Spectral Shorts: DP Drabbles
by Asphodel Gray
Summary: This isn't a story; it's a bunch of drabbles (T-K) that are based off of challenges. First three chapters are "Shell Shock", "Broken", and "Perspective". Feel free to leave comments with your prompts for me to write, or PM me, and I hope you enjoy the drabbles. Happy Very-Belated-Ectober, -Asphodel Gray.
1. Shell Shock

PROMPT ONE: SHELL SHOCK

The misty breath of the sky hung low and damp in the air, as fog. It was a blinding, heavy, tangible force, that seemed to bind his body where he stood, frozen. He shivered. The air, crisp and brisk, had no large part in this, although the temperatures were vastly lower than normal for a supposedly warm, August evening.

None of this, the cold, the fog, the heaviness of the air, nor the eerie weather changes, had any impact upon his trembling. No, this act was caused solely by a memory. A nightmarish, scarring, horrifying, never-ending memory that haunted the boy-ghost. As he stood, waiting, at the bus stop.

The memory of a fear, a presence, an echo of something awful, something unspeakably horrifying, a something that he had done. The mere echo of this something made him quake with revulsion and self-loathing- for, he had been that very something.

He was his own worst fear, and enemy.

No amount of coldness in the air could numb that feeling, however hard he tried. No amount of heaviness of the fog could outweigh the burden of living through a nightmare- a nightmare, mind you, of his own design- and the trauma afterward. No amount of white, sky-breath could blind his eyes from watching the flames rise in a quick, white flash-

Gone. Everything had died in that one instant. The fear of repeating those actions, the fear of making those horrible, unspeakable things true once more, that alone made him tremble.

He stared blankly across the road. It was as if he held a daemon's gaze from ten-thousand miles away. A blank, numb gaze that was worn by soldiers, and disaster victims. A gaze that held no place within the eyes of a schoolboy.

He waited until the bus arrived- an infinity within itself, for time held no relativity to one who was trapped within a long-forgotten instant. When the yellow, rickety, foul contraption arrived, the boy-ghost stepped inside, and made no complaint, nor any comment did he utter.

He wasn't even there, not really. His mind was miles away, experiencing the horrors of battle, war, and death. Deaths, including his own. His mother, his father, his sister, his brother in all-but-blood, his almost-lover...

He was lost, lost within a war that never even happened- not to them, anyway.

The part of him that had been innocent, and naive, had been left behind. He had left it with the part of himself that he hated, the part that he feared, and rejected. He wasn't whole anymore. That something that had made him childlike, and energetic...was gone.

He was tired, traumatised, shell shocked…

He was broken.

 **Well, that was depressing. I'm currently doing a writing prompt challenge for Ectober 2015. I'm not doing the Tumblr challenge; I'm doing my own. Send in your ideas, and I look forward to writing them. If you don't send in anything, I'll be forced to write a horrible parody involving sparkly vampires and sentient cheese slices who have terrible grammar. (Just Kidding) You have been "warned". Thanks for reading,**

 **Asphodel Gray.**


	2. Broken

You're bad. No one wants you. You're just a phony, a fake. You're replaceable, an archetype. A copy.

You've been abused. You were lied to all of your fake, happy, little existence. You liked it; the lies, the fakeness, the too-perfect-to-be true of it all. You loved it, and savored it, like a fine wine. This? This is the hangover.

Those beatings were just to make you better, right? You weren't good enough; your best wasn't good enough, but you tried. Oh, how hard you tried...and failed. Maybe you were just a few seconds shorter than you should have been, or you could have gotten in another punch. Maybe you could be better. You could! But...you weren't. You were never "good enough". Good enough was just a dream you could never obtain.

Dreams. That's all you have left now, isn't it? Memories, Should-haves, Could-haves, Would-haves, Maybe-I-might-haves…

Now, look at you. You're filthy; you're bloody; you're bruised; you have a hundred new scars and your clothes are just rags that have been cobbled together out of tattered scraps and pieces. You're starving. You haven't ate or drunk anything that you didn't steal. You don't remember what "Home" looks like. Do you even have a home anymore?

You don't, do you? Don't deserve one? Don't want to be a burden, and ask for one? You know you should. He wouldn't mind, not at all. But you're scared; you're terrified.

What if he says no? What if he loses everything, and it's all your fault? What if they reject you, hate you, hunt you down? What if they try to kill you again?

You don't want to be melted down. You already were torn apart, molecule by useless molecule, until all that was left was a glowing, ugly, green fluid that stains everything.

You would know, wouldn't you? You're good at bleeding. You do it so often. Fights, stumbles, scrapes, training, battles...they're just normal. Normal for you is a battlefield. A battlefield of the dead, the dying, the living, and the in-betweens.

You can't even die right, Dani.

Maybe you're just broken. Broken and useless...no, you have one use. Bleeding. Fighting. Breaking. These are things that you're good at.

Don't let him down, now. You can be better. You _know_ you can. One more step, one more punch, one more breath, one more ghost behind you, gone. Keep fighting.

Fix yourself, Dani. No one will fix you for you. Get up, and do better.

Don't be broken anymore.

...

 **Hello again! Thanks for reading; I hope you like the drabbles so far! If you have an idea for a chapter, don't be shy! I'd love to hear what you'd like me to write!**

 **Until next time,**

-Asphodel Gray


	3. Perspective

The stars looked so different from here, he supposed. They didn't move- at least, not in the way that they had for so long. And yet, they had always been this way; he had never seen them from this angle before. That was what was different, him. His perspective had changed, not the universe.

The Earth curved, like a marble; it was a blue and green speck within a mass of nothing. From here, you could see no borders. None of the lines that littered the maps he had seen in school were present. None of the boundaries that people had fought wars over, died for, risked their lives to cross...none of them were there at all.

The sky was littered in swirling masses that he knew to be clouds...they, too, looked different from where he stood. They were gray, and white, and moving so quickly, quietly.

Quiet. The void of nothing between the stars, the very nothing he himself was floating in, surrounded him, and engulfed him. There was no light between the stars.

Nothing at all, in fact.

It was empty. The brightest thing he saw, other than the Stars behind him, was the earth. The Earth was covered in small pinpricks of light. Yellow, white, orange, and tan-coloured the sphere. Some areas, like North America and Europe, were glowing. Others, were barren, and dull.

Why was it like this? Why do they need lights so brilliant, their radiance was visible, even here? The sky that they loved, blue and white, was just an illusion created by atmosphere's content, and light refraction. This, was darkness, and nothing. This was truth; this was night. It was empty. And yet, the billions of people below him would wake up, go to work, and think that their lives were the single most important thing in the world...a world that, in its entirety, was insignificant, and tiny.

How could anything matter when compared to the vastness of infinity?

He turned his head, and shook it. He had been left to his thoughts for mere hours, and yet, everything had changed for him. When he returned home, how would he go back to the way things were before? Should he? Would it even matter?

Danny looked at his planet, and sighed.

This was going to be a long night.

…

 **Thank you to Invader Johnny for reviewing, and giving me my idea for my last chapter! I, sadly, had to come up with this one on my own. I tried to make it longer..oh, well. I hope that you enjoyed it. If you have a prompt that you'd like to see me write, by all means, comment or PM me about it. I love to hear your ideas, and am terrible at making/coming-up-with prompts.**

 **Until next time,**

 **Asphodel Gray.**


	4. Monster

I saw them, weapons blazing with that stolen, spectral charge.

" _Mom, no!_ "

She turned to me, a genuine fear in her eyes, and her lips parted as the blast hit.

The hunters, in their strange, vibrant skins, and red eyes, trailed their guns on me. I couldn't move. I was paralyzed with fear.

Mom wasn't there to protect me anymore.

They were going to get me.

I curled into a ball, trying to hide. I couldn't move, couldn't leave, couldn't do anything but watch, horrified, as they strode closer to the child they had cornered.

The blue hunter smiled. A genuine, caring smile, as she looked at me. It looked so out of place for a monster to be wearing such a smile.

 _Why was she smiling at me?_

A blast hit me. A glowing, green, stinging force…

Darkness. I was in some sort of holding unit, and I was bleeding. My blood was the only source of light, a dull purple against the hard, cold surface.

" _Mom? I'm scared."_

Silence.

 **(Sorry that it's so short!)**

 **What happened to the other ghosts that the Fentons had caught? This is my interpretation to the prompt "Monster". I hope you liked it, and, as always, if you have an idea, feel free to comment or PM me about it.**

 **-Asphodel Gray.**


	5. Free Will

In that instant, it had changed. It was a catalyst, taking everything from him, like a tsunami did the sand; it washed away his island of free will and left nothing but the tide from which itself had been born.

In that moment, the single wave had taken everything.

Everything, but the colour red.

It surrounded him, engulfed him, left nothing but an empty shell of a hero. It seemed to move so slowly in that instant. It savored his soul, and drank it, _devoured_ it.

It took his morals.

It took his body.

It took his will.

He wasn't Danny; he wasn't Fenton, or Phantom. He was a creature of a different breed borne from madness and envy. He was a puppet, a slave.

His master? The Red.

He had no thought. That, too, had been taken. He had only orders. _Steal this,_ The Red would whisper. _Walk here, Fly there, Attack,_ The Red need only say the word, and he would kill without hesitation.

He didn't know what lay beyond The Red. He was a slave, a chess piece, a puppet. These things had no thought. He was the same as them.

He was

He existed, and obeyed, like a good puppet- Although 'good' and 'bad' had no meaning, lest The Red told him so.

The Red flickered, and he was confused. The Red was All, The Red was Everything, The Red was Master…

Yet why was there something beyond it? How could he even _ask_ such questions?

How could he ask questions to begin with? The Red, Master, had not ordered him to do so.

What was this strange, captivating flash of violet?

He focused upon the flash, but it vanished, leaving him with Master.

" _No, puppet!"_

Master had scolded him.

He had...disobeyed?

No! Master gave him an order…

"No" could be translated many different ways. "No" don't look at the violet, or "No" please, don't continue to obey me…

How was he going to obey Master if he didn't know what his Master was ordering?

" _Agh!"_ He cried out in a strange sensation - _pain?_ \- as The Red attacked it's minion.

Yet again, he detached. From what, though?

He didn't know, and he didn't ask.

The violet had vanished, as did his curiosity.

He had submitted to The Red's will.

Puppets don't ask questions.

 **Man, this is short! I've been meaning to give you guys longer chapters, honestly, but I have a long list of excuses that you probably don't want to hear.**

 **I'll give them to you anyway!**

 **I'm sick**

 **I have writers' block**

 **Homework Overload**

 **My cat is a scotophiliac with volume issues**

 **I love to torture you guys! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!**

 **No, seriously. I have the flu, and have thus been incapacitated.**

 **Any comments/suggestions/input can be placed in the comments section, or PMed to me! If you notice any typos, feel free to tell me and I'll fix them as soon as possible!**

 **WARNING: This is probably my last update for a while. I think I'm going on temporary hiatus.**

 **I'll update when I feel better,**

 **Sincerely,**

 **-Asphodel Gray**


	6. Invisible

_It wasn't there._

He'd woken up a few hours ago.

His body was back. That awful sensation of pain, the smell of electricity, the feeling of _nothing,_ not even his _body_ …

He looked at his hands, and placed them firmly on the counter before him, steadying him throughout the sudden bout of nausea he'd acquired.

His hands were there. He could see them as he looked down, breathing heavily. They were there, white knuckled against the countertop. He felt the cool marble, smelt the familiar chemicals in the air, and tasted the blood of his own tongue, blood that he had drawn when he had recoiled in shock at his reflection.

Or, rather, lack thereof.

In the mirror was a reflection of the white walls, the towels on the rack behind him, the shelf containing soaps and his mother's perfume that had never been adorned more than twice. They were all there, the same as ever.

There was nothing wrong with anything in the image, except for the thing that was missing.

His reflection.

He'd had one this morning. He would have _noticed_ if it had gone...right?

Was it the accident? No, impossible. Accidents cause things like rashes, or burns. All of these things show up in a mirror.

Rashes don't cause you to disappear.

His breathing quickened.

There had to be a way to explain this. A trick of the light? A joke of some kind, perhaps?

 _You can't hack a mirror..._

Danny felt his heartbeat quicken in his chest.

Reflections didn't just disappear.

Yet, as he pressed his shaking hand to the glass, he came to a horrifying realization.

There was no image of a hand, identical to his own, pressing against the glass from the other side.

No! It _had_ to be there!

He looked for so long, tried _so hard_ to see it...but he _couldn't._

No amount of rubbing his eyes and willing it to be so would change that simple fact.

 _It wasn't there._

 _Why wasn't it there?_

…

 **Hi, again! ...I'm back! This is based off the article I found on the net of ghosts not having reflections. I thought it was interesting, and wrote this.**

 **On another note, I'm finally flu-free! Now, I'm swamped with make-up work...ugh. Sorry if you find this a little short. I'm not quite 100% yet, but I think that you guys deserve a chapter for being so patient with me, and not yelling at me for my temporary hiatus.**

 **A special thank you to Invader Johnny for feedback and for even inspiring a few chapters with commentary! Thanks, I.J.!**

 **If you have a suggestion/writing prompt/feedback feel free to comment/PM, and I hope that you enjoy the drabbles!**

 **Glad to be back,**

 **Asphodel Gray**


	7. Occam's Razor

They didn't notice.

Or, rather, they didn't _want_ to.

He used to be an A student.

Now? If he makes it to class on time twice a week, it's a miracle.

He used to run away from bullies.

Now, he just takes punches like a fish takes to water.

He used to smile a lot.

He doesn't do that anymore.

He never turns in his work on time.

He used to have a perfect attendance award for every year.

He used to be healthy.

He was barely able to walk to class yesterday.

He was so careful before.

He always has gauze, or bandages, or ace-wraps on, now.

He was different before.

...Before what, though?

No one asked.

There were theories, sure.

Was he a junkie? A gang member? Was he in a "Bad home situation"?

There were theories…

...but no one ever _asked_.

Why?

Maybe it was because they didn't want to know the answer; they didn't want to know the truth.

They didn't want to admit these things that were in the backs of their minds, things too strange for them to acknowledge.

Things like how he only smiled softly when he was bullied now, as if he _liked_ it, or was _laughing,_ like he had some inside joke no one knew about.

Things like how the ace bandages moved to different spots every other day, and the wounds they covered vanished.

Things like how he always had an excuse, or an alibi.

Alibis and excuses that never checked out.

He used to be honest.

When did that change?

When did _any_ of this, these things that used to define this boy they knew, change?

Maybe they didn't want the truth to be strange. Maybe they wanted to believe that he was on drugs, or in a gang, or seeking attention, simply because it was _easier_.

Maybe Occam's Razor failed them this time.

Maybe they just didn't want to see the truth, a truth that their classmate was dead.

And not one of them noticed.

None of them wanted to.

 **This prompt was Occam's Razor! I found it on an anonymous list of prompts on the net. If you have any prompts/commentary you'd like to send in, please leave them in the comments, or PM me! I love to hear your ideas and look forward to anything you might have to share!**

 **Speaking of sharing, thank you to Invader Johnny and MsFrizzle for leaving commentary! I really appreciate your feedback, and it's been incredibly helpful so far. Thanks, guys!**

 **Sincerely, :)**

 **Asphodel Gray.**


	8. Glass

He tentatively touched the ground.

It was glossy, and hard. It was glowing a soft, pale, green colour.

Glass.

It was hard, and shone softly against the air, thick and murky as it was. If he had breathed, he would have tasted the gritty ash, and felt the pollutants in the air against his eyes. It was a wasteland that stretched for miles, glowing that iridescent, haunting green. A green that looked sickly and weak in the hellish, arid remnant of a place that once held an abundance of life.

The skyline was quiet.

No storm edged against the bleak horizon, and no celestial bodies could be seen through the ash and dust of the apocalypse. Nor, were any machines flying through the air, hurriedly transporting people from one place to another. All that was there were the ashes, the glass, and the ghost.

The weight of the air pressed against him suddenly, and he fell to his knees. His eyes flung open, and stung. He gasped for air. His nonexistent lungs _screamed_ at him.

What was wrong with him? He had wondered the each for so many years, unharmed, unnerved by the oppressive silence he had created. He had, uncaringly, wandered in a place only comparable to hell, unscathed, for an amount of time so long that it seemed too immense for even a god, like himself, to count it.

He had not needed to breathe. The dead have no lungs, no heart. He had no body to care for. If not suffocation, then what was this force making him gasp, and choke? What could be causing this feeling- this _weight, and pain_ inside of his chest? If not the polluted air, then why were his eyes stinging, and watering? _Crying,_ he realised.

He was crying.

The word felt strange in his mind. He hadn't though about anything for so many years...he had merely existed, aimlessly. The few thoughts he had made were incoherent, and about vengeance and anger. Crying had not been a word to him in an infinite amount of time, and yet, here he was, broken down, sobbing, in between a green, glowing glass, and an infinite cloud of ash.

He pressed his body against the glass. He wanted to _hide._ He wanted to _melt into it_ and _disappear._

A sound left his lips, making him recoil in shock at the guttural, weak sound. It sounded like death.

He remembered. He remembered what time had forced him to forget, and he _screamed._ He screamed, and yelled, and cried, and hated…

He remembered how they screamed for him to stop.

He remembered how _easy_ it had been to ignore them… To _kill_ them.

He had killed them.

He had screamed that radioactive, green, wailing scream, and killed them all in under ten minutes. The ground, the buildings, the _Earth…_ it had all melted into a green, swirling, radioactive mass. Whatever hadn't melted had been left in the atmosphere, and stayed there for however long had passed since that fateful day.

He had been wandering around on the glass… A glass that consisted of everything he had ended… He was on a mass grave, and he was a mass murderer.

 _If I had an ounce of humanity left…_

He trembled at his words.

And then he remembered the grief. He had lost everything… And then he'd killed everything else.

He'd just wanted the pain to stop…

" _I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"_ His voice, dried and cracked from lack of use and screaming, rang and echoed across the long, glowing expanse.

No one answered.

He was alone.

...

 _ **This**_ **is what happens when I try and write happy things. I honestly haven't meant for this story to be all angsty writing, but I've recently discovered that writing "happy" never ends well. This is a prime example of that.** **Prompt is "Glass".** **Sorry for the long wait for the chapter! I've been trying to update weekly...oh, well. This is a birthday present to you guys! My birthday is coming up this week and I wanted to give you something long as a gift!** **If you have comments/prompts, please comment or PM me with them! I really love it when you can help me make this story more enjoyable for you!** **-Asphodel Gray**


	9. Isolated

It was dark, like an infinite night sky, lacking in any and all celestial bodies.

If not for the glowing of his incorporeal form making visible the sides of the containment unit, he could have pretended that it went on forever.

He stretched out his hand.

It came in contact with the metal wall, and a jolt of electricity passed through him.

He wished that he could imagine the wall wasn't there, and yet, the only feelings he had came from the barrier. His sense of touch, activated by the pain of the shock. His sight, by the dim light, like a spark. His sense of hearing, if only for a moment, could hear the quick jolt snap through the air.

He heard other things, too. He heard them when he talked to himself. Words, phrases of nonsense strung together, songs that he had forgotten all but the melody of…

Screams...he screamed, sometimes. It helped fill the silence, help battle the silence pressing against him, as if the air had changed to lead, and was weighing against him.

Time was fluid. There was no sun, no moon, no stars. There wasn't a night, or a day. His only measurement of anything was in his muddled, addlepated mind. Everything was slow, or _very, very fast,_ or, sometimes, he just turned _off,_ staring into nothing, or at a wall, or following dots that _weren't there_ with his eyes, for and hours and days and years and minutes and seconds all at once.

His infinity fit inside of a metal container.

He liked to count. Sometimes numbers, or sounds, or just thoughts in his head, but he counted them all. _One, two, bird, cat, seven, twenty-five, death, pretty, rose, purple!_

And then, he'd laugh. He'd laugh, and fill the silence. He'd hear it echo dimly across the metal room, and he's listen to the echo.

That echo was the only voice he'd ever hear. It spoke back _things_ to him. It said words, and screams, and song, and a thousand other things he'd heard over and over again.

He talked to it, and it talked back. He talked until his voice was raspy and hoarse and bleeding, and his strange, green blood polled at the corner of his mouth, and he'd smile, and talk some more until he _couldn't._

When that happened, he'd just talk in his head. He'd think things, and noises, and things that didn't exist anywhere else but his corroded and deranged mind.

He'd press his hands and feet and back to the floor, desperate to feel the pain, however fleeting, simply because it was _there._ It was there in so many ways he wasn't. It had a body that he could touch, a voice that spoke back to him, if only he scream loud enough, and had a form. He had a impression of a body that had faded with time.

He'd forgotten what he looked like.

He'd forgotten what _anything_ looked like.

Anything, except for the wall.

It was constant. It didn't move, or flinch when it touched anything. It didn't scream, or speak. It simply _existed._ It was everything, and everyone, and all that was, and it was hell.

But he didn't know that.

He knew that as long as he screamed, he'd hear things. He knew that as long as he was in pain, he felt things.

He'd forgotten anything else.

…

 **Extra long chapter for you guys! I've fallen into a bit of writer's block, but I was able to pull this together. Thanks for being patient!**

 **-If you notice any grammar/spelling errors, feel free to tell me and I'll correct them as soon as I can!**

 **-If you have any comments, or have a writing prompt you'd like for me to do, I'd love to hear them! You can PM me, or leave them in the comments!**

 **The idea for this came from a news story I saw about solitary confinement being torture. I did a bit of research, and based Dan's habits off of them. Screaming, seeing dots, "zoning out" and others are all real reactions to solitary confinement.**

 **Sincerely,**

 **-Asphodel Gray**


	10. Thank You

Desiree felt sick.

Yes, sick was exactly the word to describe this _thing_ that she felt.

This was torture, and guilt, and hatred.

It made her ill.

She'd granted so many evil wishes in the last thousand years...never before had she granted one of this degree.

She'd granted wealth, and power, and love. She'd given food, and bliss, and eternal joy.

She'd even killed. " _I wish for you to kill…"_ and then a name. They'd say the name, she'd snap her fingers, and the recipient of the wish would die.

Never, not once, had anyone wished something like this upon her. It was selfless, and selfish, and _filthy._ It made her feel _filthy_ and _wrong_ to grant such a wish.

She hadn't had a choice. The boy had spoken those awful words, and she'd granted them.

She wished that she hadn't heard him. She wished that she were deaf, and could never hear such an awful thing again.

She wished that he'd wished for anything else, anything other than what he had. Money, love, power, _Anything._

This was the one wish that she hadn't been prepared to grant.

It was a wish of death, but not in the same way as the others.

" _I wish for you to kill me_."

And then she's said it.

" _So you've wished it, so it shall be."_

It had come out strangled, and in reflex. She'd spoken those words, words she'd said a thousand times before, and she'd granted that awful, _awful_ wish to that boy.

And then he'd smiled. And he was smiling as he turned paler, and his life drained away from him. He was smiling as a woman found his body the next morning, and screamed.

He was probably still smiling now.

He'd handed her a note before he said it, said that awful request.

She was still holding the note now, with her steady, ghostly hands.

It was written beautifully in ink on a piece of diary paper.

It had said "Thank you".

…

 **...I'M BACK! Sorry about the long space between updates: My sister was sick; I was sick; I have writer's block.**

 **I get sick a lot. If I do get ill, from now on I'll post it on my profile page, and update when I'm feeling better again.**

 **Prompt was "Thank you". If you have any prompts, or have comments you'd like to share, please put them in the comment section, or PM me!**

 **If you notice any grammatical errors, please notify me of them, and I'll fix them as soon as possible!**

 **Sorry about the wait,**

 **-Asphodel Gray :)**


	11. Christmas

They were fighting again.

Weren't they supposed to love each other? Weren't they supposed to love him, and Jazz, and not be angry?

Danny felt tears slide down his face from his eyes.

He was so confused.

They were scaring him.

In the dark of his closet, their voices were mumbled, so he couldn't hear the awful things they were yelling.

However, he could hear the tones of their voices through the thin walls and floor.

" _It's impossible, Jack! Stop being so childish!"_

" _He's real; It's not impossible!"_

" _Only an idiot would believe such a thing!"_

" _Only a fool would deny it!"_

" _I hate you!"_

" _I hate you, too!"_

He grabbed his knees closed to his chest, trying to make himself small within his closet.

Why did it matter if _he_ was real or not? Did that man matter more to them than each other? What about him and Jazz?

Danny heard a knock on the closet door.

He looked up, and wiped away his tears.

The knob turned, and a figure stood, wielding a flashlight, in the doorway of the alcove.

"Jazz?"

Her eyes were red.

She'd been crying, too.

She grabbed a blanket from his bed, and sat down next to him, pulling a blanket around their shoulders.

They stayed in there all night.

…

 **Hey, guys.**

 **Sorry if I disappointed anyone with the small bit off fluff here. I tried to make it angsty.**

 **I haven't updated in a while...**

 **I'm not going to update for a while.**

 **I've been busy with homework, illness, classes, and my laptop not working. These factors, among several others, are why I'm putting this story on hiatus.**

 **I'm not abandoning this story, I just need to take a break from it.**

 **If you have any prompts for this story, feel free to send them in, and I will write them as soon as I can and to the best of my ability.**

 **Bye for now, but not forever,**

 **-Asphodel Gray.**


	12. On Time

" _He'll be home any minute now."_

She whispered it to herself. It seemed so loud within her head, and yet, it was a sound was barely a whisper against the massive silence.

Everything was quiet now. No voices, no loud, roaring engines…Only a loud, vacant silence.

Not even a shadow dared penetrate the vast silence and emptiness around her.

 _Even the shadow left her._

No.

He'd be home soon.

Surely, she'd set her watch wrong. That was it. She'd set her watch early, and the time wasn't up yet.

She still had time.

There wasn't any other explanation. He'll come back. He'll come back any second now, like he always did.

He'll apologize, and try to make it up to her, and take her to the human world for a romantic ride, _like always_. She'd forgive him, and then it would repeat later on. It wasn't taking too long.

No, her mind was just playing tricks on her. It couldn't be ten minutes after the time was up. That wasn't possible.

Her watch was wrong, that was all.

She hadn't been floating there for fifteen minutes. No, that wasn't it at all. He'll be home soon, so why would she be standing there, and crying? She hadn't done anything wrong. He'll come back.

It was a fluke. Time didn't count if you were stuck in between zones, right? No, of course it wouldn't count. _It couldn't_. It wasn't her fault if she was a little late at releasing him, so it didn't count.

Her watch must be very, very broken. She'll make Johnny steal her a new one when he gets back. A really nice watch. Ten more minutes can't have possibly passed.

He's coming back. He hasn't been kissed away for more than twelve hours.

She wasn't late. She didn't get stuck in between worlds again, and she didn't leave Johnny and Shadow behind, in the other dimension.

Johnny and Kitty...they never were late, not for anything. Not ever.

She made it home on time, didn't she? She did everything right. Nothing went wrong; _It didn't count_ ; nothing was wrong.

 _Johnny's coming back any minute now._

 _He's never late._

…

 **Based off of the headcanon that Kitty, due to some circumstance, leaves Johnny 13 in the Kiss Dimension for too long by accident (See the episode: 'Girls Night Out'). I'm calling it "On Time".**

 **I'm not sure when I'll update next, but I** _ **will**_ **update again...eventually. This story is not abandoned; it's just going to be updated** _ **way**_ **more sporadically.** **If you have any prompts you'd like me to do, please, put them in the comments section, or PM me. I love it when you guys send in prompts. If you see any grammar errors, please inform me and I will try my best to fix them as soon as possible.**

 **Thanks for not giving up on me, or this story, and for reading this far,**

- **Asphodel Gray**


	13. I lose

**_The battle couldn't be over yet…_**

 _The blood on my hands, my chest, my face, reeking of dirt and copper, and ozone -like air after a lightning strike- is on the sidewalk. Screams echo like the ringing of a gong inside my head._

 _The screams are getting more echo-like, and fainter._

 _My skull was smashed into it a few minutes ago._

 _I try to protest. To scream_ " _ **No!",**_ _or give my battlecry._

 _I can barely make a strangled whimper._

 _I can't feel anything but cold. It's not the familiar cold of my core, but like a numbing sensation filled with pinpricks of ice._

 _Even that is faded._

 _If I look down at myself, I can see red-brown and radioactive green swirling together like a christmas party gone horribly wrong._

 _Blood. There's so much of it...surely it can't be mine._

 _The fight can't be over yet. There's still blobs, shapes, configurations- citizens! Innocent bystanders, reduced to blurred bits of color by my fading vision._

 _If I can see them, I can save them. Can't I?_

 _But I can't move...and I'm so cold…_

 _No! Don't think….like that!_

 _It'll...be okay…_

 _What was I thinking about?_

 _Save them. Right, I have to…Get everyone out. Beat...who was I fighting?_

 ** _Save them._**

 _I…_

 _It's getting darker. Where are the blobs? The blurs? The screams?_

 _No! They can't be gone!_

 _They must be somewhere in the darkness!_

 _If only I could see them, hear them- anything to tell me where they are!_

 _The battle isn't over! I can still help!_

 _Don't be dead!_

 _Who's dead? Me? Or another person?_

 _Was that even my voice? Or someone else's?_

 _Another person!_

 _ **I can help! I can find you!**_

 _I'm a hero! Heroes don't die before the battle's over!_

 _I'm not done fighting, not-!_

 _Not yet!_

 _ **I can still-!**_

…

Pariah looked at the fallen boy in disgust.

"Get him out of here, serfs! His corpse is a _blemish_ to my kingdom! Place him with the others!"

And, scowling in disgust and shock, they, the ghosts,-now the servants- drug his corpse away.

It was placed in a pile, with the others.

The old, newly freed king looked at the bodies, and at the new realm he controlled.

His smirk said only one thing,

 _I didn't lose, fool._

 _You did._

…

…

" **Based off of a prompt I found about 'What if Danny lost to Pariah'? Well, I imagine that he'd take a blow he couldn't get up from eventually, and these are his dying thoughts.**

 **Afterward, was some clarification as to how he died, and what/who he was fighting against.**

 **Sorry if it was a bit hard to follow! He** _ **did**_ **just have his head hit...and suffered from blood loss...so a little confusion was to be expected.**

 **...As for updates, I told you they would be sporadic. I don't know when I'll update again. Tomorrow? A year? A week? I honestly have no clue. I write when inspired, and inspiration doesn't come often for me.**

 **I hope you enjoyed it,**

 **-Asphodel Gray**


	14. Master

_He's going to come back today. I just know he is!_

32 looked at the post that chained him to the fence.

The other dogs had been tied there too, at first, but over the last two days, they'd been led away. He was the last one left.

Where were they going? The lab?

He didn't like the lab doctor. She hurt him with sharp things and put chemicals on his fur that made his body twitch and ache.

The Night Guard, or 'Gray', as he was sometimes called, always scratched behind his ears and trained with him. 32 found that he very much enjoyed ripping the heads off of training dummies.

He could hardly wait until he grew as big and strong as the other dogs! That's all he ever wanted to do: be big and strong and useful! Well, that and play with his squeaky toy.

He was special. No other dog in the whole world had a squeaky toy! He knew that because he knew all thirty dogs there, and none of them owned one, so it must have been the only squeaky toy there was!

Gray had been so nice to give it to him. He loved Gray. He could hardly wait until the man took him away, too, so that he could be with the other dogs.

A loud noise came from behind the building that he lay in front of, tied to the entrance fence.

It had happened once after each dog was taken away. Maybe it was a new training exercise?

Exercises were fun! He could bring his squeaky toy along, and play with it!

Gray chose that moment to come from behind the building, and walk forward to the pup.

"Hi, boy! How are you?"

The man was smiling, but he smelled wrong. Why was he sad? And why was there water on his face?

Before he could bark in confusion, he saw Gray holding the precious squeaky toy.

The pup grabbed it in his jaws, but dropped it in surprise when Gray stuck a Sharp Thing into his neck.

He didn't understand. Only the scientists did that. Why had Gray hurt him?

"It's okay, bud. This will just help you go to sleep... I'm not even supposed to have it, but I can't just let you watch this."

Watch what? Was there something he wasn't supposed to see?

Maybe it was a surprise, like the squeaky toy! But what would he be surprised with?

His vest, maybe?

His tail wagged at the very thought of getting his own vest, though it was slower than usual.

Tired...he had slept a lot the previous night. Maybe he was sick?

If he was sick, he couldn't get his vest!

Concerned eyes looked up at Gray, who started petting him before pulling out his Shiny Do Not Play With.

32 had come up with the name himself because it was shiny, sticking out of Gray's pocket-belt-thingy, and he was never, not _ever_ supposed to play with it.

Gray pointed the end at him, and walked away, still facing him.

He was so tired... but he couldn't sleep! He had to get his vest!

Maybe playing with his squeaky toy would keep him more awake?

"Stay, boy." Gray ordered.

The pup whimpered. If he could just get his squeaky toy...!

It would solve everything! The toy would keep him awake, so he'd get his vest, proving he was a big, strong guard dog!

Then, he'd be Gray's partner! It would be perfect!

Eyes set on the squeaky toy, he didn't focus on anything else, not even the loud noise that-

...

Where was he? He looked down at the grass.

He liked grass...or didn't he? He _thought_ he did...

What was something he liked? He focused hard before yipping in delight.

His squeaky toy! He had a toy, and it was very special. Where was it?

He looked around, but didn't see it.

Why wasn't it there?

He had a vague memory of not being big enough... maybe if he were bigger, he could find it?

Not even a moment after thinking it, his body effortlessly grew in size.

He stepped over the fence and ran off, embarking on the journey to find the toy.

...

 **Thank you to the friend, who shall remain anonymous, that found a list of prompts and told me to just pick one! At first, I was stumped, but then I thought of Cujo, or 32, as he's called before Danny finds him. I made up the name/number for him because I didn't know what name, if any, he had before he went ghost...As for the updating, I don't even know what to say at this point. How long has it been since I last updated? I actually forgot. Whoops.**

 **Sorry, guys. This chapter's not very long, but I tried my best.**

 **As always, please tell me about any spelling/grammatical errors, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter.**

 **Sincerely,**

 **Asphodel Gray.**


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